Sweet Catastrophe

So NBC has done away with their YouTube channel to start their own site–hulu.com. You can read more about it on their blog. I’m all in favor of the concept of hulu. It looks as though there will be full episodes available, as well as talk of some full length films. My annoyance lies in their reasoning–their motivation.

You can read for yourself what NBC Universal chief executive Jeff Zucker had to say about their past, now ended, partnership with iTunes, but I have a few things I’d like to call bullshit on.

“We know that Apple has destroyed the music business — in terms of pricing — and if we don’t take control, they’ll do the same thing on the video side,”

Wait, you mean that whole thing where people are more likely to actually pay for their music since they can now pay for just that one song instead of having to buy a whole album? I’ve paid for SO much more music than I used to since iTunes came around. I didn’t even do this with Napster, but with iTunes, I’ve already got the software because I need it for my iPod, and oh look! There’s a handy little store where I can use PayPal to pay less than a dollar for a song! I can do that.

NBC originally claimed to be seeking more control over the pricing of songs and videos that it was selling on iTunes, in addition to better piracy controls and more flexibility to bundle video content in an effort to increase revenues.

For its part in the bitter feud, Apple responded by saying NBC was asking for a twofold increase in the wholesale price of its TV show content, which would have resulted in the retail price to iTunes customers increasing to $4.99 per episode from $1.99.

Answering questions at the breakfast Sunday, Zucker offered substantially more color on the iTunes matter, explaining that it was “a relatively easy decision” for NBC to walk away from the Apple download service because it had only earned about $15 million from the service last year in spite of accounting for about 40 per cent of the videos sold on the store.

He said NBC routinely propositioned Apple to breach its standard pricing model and experiment with higher pricing for one hit show such as “Heroes” by raising the price from the iTunes standard $1.99 to $2.99 on a trial basis.

Awl only $15 million? As opposed to nothing? That’s heartbreaking guys…really.

$2.99 or $4.99, either way, charging that much is ridiculous. That’s more than you’ll pay for a physical copy of the show. I understand you’re also paying for the convenience of having it right now, but even at $2.99, I’ll save my $70 to buy the dvds later–for now I’ll download the show and you’ll get nothing. At $1.99, you’re leaving the door open for people not to feel completely ridiculous if they download the show, and then later decide to buy the dvd.

“Apple sold millions of dollars worth of hardware off the back of our content and made a lot of money,” he said. “They did not want to share in what they were making off the hardware or allow us to adjust pricing.”

Wow, you’re giving yourself a whollle lotta credit there darlin. I own an iPod to listen to music. If I can watch episodes of my favorite shows between classes as well, then that’s just icing on the cake, but I don’t currently know anyone who bought an iPod specifically so they could watch tv on it. I’m sure those people are out there, but I feel certain they’re in the minority.

Get over yourselves NBC. You’re a great network, but it’s not up to you to decide it’s time to change the way we watch television online. Especially when you want to bring ridiculous ideas to the table.